Becoming Italian
through Family, Food, and Life in the South
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $7.50
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Virtual Voice
-
By:
-
Bret Thoman
This title uses virtual voice narration
About this listen
Initially drawn to Florence to study the language and explore his Italian ancestry, he feels a lure to the less touristy South. In the slower half of Italy, dialects are spoken, America is still revered, and lazy lunches are the high point of the day. In the beginning, Bret had more questions than answers. What was it about forming a single-file line that was so difficult? Why did drivers race through the ancient streets on their Vespas and take so long to do everything else? What was it about shop owners who never wanted to write receipts? What was it about air currents? Was air conditioning really harmful to Italians’ health? And then there was the food. Lunch was so important that everything stopped for hours as family and friends left work, came together, shared a meal together, and rested afterward. Then, there was soccer. Italians’ pride in their food was rivaled only by their national sport.
In the second part of the book, Bret introduces us to his family as he meets his wife, marries, and discovers the authentic part of Southern Italy as experienced through his in-laws. You’ll smile and chuckle as his mother-in-law teaches him the secrets of Italian cooking and laugh out loud as he is educated in Italy’s rigid Food Rules and the dangers of ice and open windows. More moving are the family scenarios, such as the births of his children in the Italian hospital system.
In the third section, Bret recounts more of the joys and vexations of living in Italy. While mundane events like going to the post office, getting a driver’s license, and paying taxes can be maddening due to chaotic government bureaucracy, in the end, Bret accepts the cultural idiosyncrasies of Italy as he is grateful for what the country has given him. Not only does he become an Italian citizen along the way, he is ultimately transformed by the “Sweet Life.” For the Italians have taught Bret the strength of community, the nourishing benefits of time and meals together, enduring friendships, and what it means to be part of a family. In the end, he has become Italian.
If you are curious about your own Italian roots, if Italy is your favorite destination, or if you enjoy wacky travel stories colored by the Italian spirit, you won’t want to miss this one. With an eye for the zany, awkward, and just plain ludicrous, this book will not disappoint.
Reviews:
"Filled with colorful stories, anecdotes, and travel experiences, ranging from historical to humorous, Bret relates his life and travel experiences in a fun and engaging way. A delightful and informative read." Bonnie, Reads and Writes
"A travel memoir that is comprehensive, witty, and enlightening. A fantastic compilation of personal stories that are easy to read and take mere moments to elicit a laugh. I loved this book and am so grateful Thoman is sharing la dolce vita with us." Asher Syed, Readers' Favorite
"A sincere and enjoyable account of how one man took a path from his home in Georgia to Italy to find love and family. Many rites of passage familiar to those of us who have willingly set upon the same journey that neatly form the chapters. Wonderfully insightful." Philip Curnow, blogger
"Grits and sweet tea meet lasagna and espresso in a selection of personal reflections and slice of life vignettes that are sure to please." Debby Giusti, USA TODAY Bestselling Author
"With an eye for the awkward and the ludicrous, makes for a fun read." Karl Keating, Bestselling author
"Interesting, touching, funny, and delightfully Italian!" Murray Bodo, bestselling author
Related to this topic
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Stranded
- By: Chris Bruno, David Howard Lee, Shukri R. Abdi
- Narrated by: Taraji P. Henson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Blake Griffin, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?
-
-
Get ready to Laugh
- By Lasheree McFarlane on 11-08-24
By: Chris Bruno, and others
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
The Best Man's Ghostwriter
- By: Matthew Starr
- Narrated by: Glen Powell, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).
-
-
SO GOOD
- By Csutty on 09-23-24
By: Matthew Starr
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Great Indoors
- By: Ginny Hogan
- Narrated by: Mae Whitman
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.
-
-
Chuck full of laughs to lift anyone's spirits.
- By Laura Boogaert on 09-22-24
By: Ginny Hogan
-
The Answer Is No
- A Short Story
- By: Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth DeNoma - translator
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 1 hr and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
-
-
Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
- By joey1603 on 12-01-24
By: Fredrik Backman, and others
-
Stranded
- By: Chris Bruno, David Howard Lee, Shukri R. Abdi
- Narrated by: Taraji P. Henson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Blake Griffin, and others
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?
-
-
Get ready to Laugh
- By Lasheree McFarlane on 11-08-24
By: Chris Bruno, and others
-
Born a Crime
- Stories from a South African Childhood
- By: Trevor Noah
- Narrated by: Trevor Noah
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.
-
-
Great book and perfect narration
- By MarilynArms on 12-15-16
By: Trevor Noah
-
The Best Man's Ghostwriter
- By: Matthew Starr
- Narrated by: Glen Powell, Nicholas Braun, Ashley Park, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).
-
-
SO GOOD
- By Csutty on 09-23-24
By: Matthew Starr
-
Slaughterhouse-Five
- By: Kurt Vonnegut
- Narrated by: James Franco
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).
-
-
Don't Quit Your Daytime Job, James
- By Keith on 11-20-15
By: Kurt Vonnegut
-
The Great Indoors
- By: Ginny Hogan
- Narrated by: Mae Whitman
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.
-
-
Chuck full of laughs to lift anyone's spirits.
- By Laura Boogaert on 09-22-24
By: Ginny Hogan
-
I Can't Make This Up
- Life Lessons
- By: Neil Strauss - contributor, Kevin Hart
- Narrated by: Kevin Hart
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.
-
-
Best Audiobook I Ever Listened To
- By Sam Clear on 07-13-17
By: Neil Strauss - contributor, and others
-
Very Unbecoming
- By: Emily Kron, Kate Hopkins
- Narrated by: Zoë Chao, Esther Povitsky, Amy Sedaris
- Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When two childhood best friends blow up their respective romantic relationships, they make a time-sensitive pact: serial-cheater Chuck cannot sleep with anyone as she attends a three-month-long recovery group for cheaters, while sex-deprived Sofia vows to hook up with as many people as possible before recommitting to monogamy and tying the knot with her long-time fiancé. To keep things interesting, Chuck and Sofia decide to revive a past tradition from their summer camp days—also known as the dawning of sluthood.
-
-
Hilarious
- By Rachel on 11-21-24
By: Emily Kron, and others
-
The True Story of The Coward Brothers
- By: Elvis Costello
- Narrated by: T Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Rhea Seehorn, and others
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The True Story of The Coward Brothers follows two musical brothers – one English, one American, both the illegitimate sons of dubious parentage who may, as they claim to be, "one and half-brothers" – perhaps a reference to the disparity in their height and relative talents.
-
-
Cute
- By NRo on 11-26-24
By: Elvis Costello
-
American Psycho
- By: Bret Easton Ellis
- Narrated by: Pablo Schreiber
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.
-
-
Fanntastic book but maybe not for everyone....
- By So Fain on 03-27-11
-
Caledonian Road
- A Novel
- By: Andrew O'Hagan
- Narrated by: Michael Abubakar
- Length: 22 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Campbell Flynn, art historian, professor, and fêted fixture of the literati, always knew that when his life came crashing down, it would happen in public—yet he never imagined that a single year in London would expose so much. He’s never taken other people half as seriously as they take themselves, which is the first of his mistakes. The second is a new project: opportunistic and precisely calibrated to rake in a fortune.
-
-
The best audiobook I have ever listened to
- By Samuel Barker on 07-31-24
By: Andrew O'Hagan
-
Made in America
- By: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
-
-
Bryson Not Reading Makes For a Rare Fail
- By John on 02-28-14
By: Bill Bryson
What listeners say about Becoming Italian
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lisa6000
- 02-09-24
Very enjoyable book!
As an Italian American myself, who has documented her Italian citizenship, I really enjoyed this book. 
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sonja
- 04-26-24
Just what I was looking for
After a recent vacation to Italy I have been pondering many of the topics discussed in this book and learned so many interesting details and gained great insight to the sweet life of Italy.
AI narration slaughtered Italian words, and a few hilarious moments when AI couldn’t enunciate Italian terminology (around 6:12 in chapter about taxes made me laugh out loud).
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Thomas P Fiorelli
- 07-25-24
Second Rate Performance and Experience
What should we think of an author who uses AI to convey his Italian story. Every two minutes Mr.AI slaughters the Italian language. The author shows little respect for himself, the work, and the Paying Listener.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!